GlassFish Server Open Source Edition will remain the reference implementation of Java EE. The current trunk is where an implementation for Java EE 8 will flourish, and this will become the future GlassFish 5.0. Calling "GlassFish is dead" does no good to the Java EE ecosystem. The GlassFish Community will remain strong towards the future of Java EE. Without revenue-focused mind, this might actually help the GlassFish community to shape the next version, and set free from any ties with commercial decisions.

Fact #2 - OGS support is not over

As I said before, GlassFish Server Open Source Edition will continue. Main change is that there will be no more future commercial releases of Oracle GlassFish Server. New and existing OGS 2.1.x and 3.1.x commercial customers will continue to be supported according to the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy. In parallel, I believe there's no other company in the Java EE business that offers commercial support to more than one build of a Java EE application server. This new direction can actually help customers and partners, simplifying decision through commercial negotiations.

Fact #3 - WebLogic is not always more expensive than OGS

Oracle GlassFish Server ("OGS") is a build of GlassFish Server Open Source Edition bundled with a set of commercial features called GlassFish Server Control and license bundles such as Java SE Support. OGS has at the moment of this writing the pricelist of U$ 5,000 / processor. One information that some bloggers are mentioning is that WebLogic is more expensive than this. Fact 3.1: it is not necessarily the case. The initial edition of WebLogic is called "Standard Edition" and falls into a policy where some “Standard Edition” products are licensed on a per socket basis. As of current pricelist, US$ 10,000 / socket. If you do the math, you will realize that WebLogic SE can actually be significantly more cost effective than OGS, and a customer can save money if running on a CPU with 4 cores or more for example. Quote from the price list:

“When licensing Oracle programs with Standard Edition One or Standard Edition in the product name (with the exception of Java SE Support, Java SE Advanced, and Java SE Suite), a processor is counted equivalent to an occupied socket; however, in the case of multi-chip modules, each chip in the multi-chip module is counted as one occupied socket.”

For more details speak to your Oracle sales representative - this is clearly at list price and every customer typically has a relationship with Oracle (like they do with other vendors) and different contractual details may apply.

There are no major vendors providing support for community builds of any Open Source application server. For example, IBM used to provide community support for builds of Apache Geronimo, not anymore. Red Hat does not commercially support builds of WildFly and if I remember correctly, never supported community builds of former JBoss AS. Oracle has never commercially supported GlassFish Server Open Source Edition builds. Tomitribe appears to be the exception to the rule, offering commercial support for Apache TomEE.

WebLogic is closed-source offering. It is commercialized through a license-based plus support fee model. OGS although from an Open Source code, has had the same commercial model as WebLogic. Still, one cannot compare GlassFish/WebLogic to WildFly/JBoss EAP. It is simply not the same case, since Oracle has had two different products from different codebases. The comparison should be limited to GlassFish Open Source / Oracle GlassFish Server versus WildFly / JBoss EAP.

But the message now is much clear: Oracle will commercially support only the proprietary product WebLogic, and invest on GlassFish Server Open Source Edition as the reference implementation for the Java EE platform and future Java EE 8, as a developer-friendly community distribution, and encourages community participation through Adopt a JSR and contributions to GlassFish.

Some users are saying they will now move to WildFly, but it is important to note that Red Hat does not offer commercial support for WildFly builds. Although the future JBoss EAP versions will come from the same codebase as WildFly, the builds will definitely not be the same, nor sharing 100% of their functionalities and bug fixes. This means there will be no company running a WildFly build in production with support from Red Hat.

GlassFish Server Open Source Edition isn’t dead. Current and new OGS 2.x/3.x customers will continue to have support (respecting LSP). WebLogic is not necessarily more expensive than OGS. Oracle will focus on one commercially supported Java EE application server, like other vendors also limit themselves to support one build/product only. Community builds are hardly supported. Commercially supported builds of Open Source products are not exactly from the same codebase as community builds.

What's next for GlassFish and the Java EE community?

There are conversations in place to tackle some of the community desires, most of them stated by Markus Eisele in his blog post. We will keep you posted.

In reality, I had also planned to go to Panama City, and San José in Costa Rica. Well, things sometimes don't always go as planned, and I couldn't go to Panama. And when I got to Costa Rica, I was sent back to Mexico because I was not with my Yellow Fever card. But I'm looking forward to Java EE 9, if you know what I mean. :-) In the end, I visited 7 cities:

Mexico City, Mexico

Guadalajara, Mexico

Santiago, Chile

Lima, Peru

Montevideo, Uruguay

Buenos Aires, Argentina

São Paulo, Brazil

Now, before I talk about each city, let me explain something to you really important: OTN Tour is organized by LAOUC, the Latin America Oracle Users Community. And at each participant city, local OUGs help to organize, set a venue, local partners as sponsors, and also work with the speakers' agenda. Oracle does sponsor these events, both by supporting the local event, as well by sponsoring Oracle ACEDs to travel with the tour. If you want to become an Oracle ACE, all you need to do is to learn about the Oracle ACE program.

We all know how Database-driven Oracle has been for the past decades, and we understand that most off the Oracle User Groups are more interested on Database stuff. But this is changing. There was a lot of interest during the whole tour on Middleware and Development technologies such as Java EE, ADF, WebLogic, and GlassFish. Dana Singleterry joined me in this tour and brought with him a lot of information on ADF 12c and ADF Mobile. Don't forget to follow him on Twitter.

By the way, this tour was great to improve my Spanish. Yeah, you read it: Spaaaanish. I'm from Brazil, and we speak Portuguese there. And Brazil is the only country in Latin America that speaks Portuguese. To improve my learning, at every country I visited I tried to learn local slangs. So for each city, I did a special slide for Java EE 7. Really, you gotta learn local slangs to be cool with a 2nd/3rd language :-P Anyway, it all started on July 21st in the morning...

Mexico City (DF), Mexico - July 26th

Like I told before, I could not go to Panama nor Costa Rica, so I stayed in Mexico the first week, and worked with Oracle folks there, did customer meetings, worked from hotel, etc. On Friday I finally started. Great venue at Egade Business School as well a very nice setup with coffeebreaks and lunch for everyone. Kudos to ORAMEX, the local OUG. In Mexico, I gave my Java EE talk, and did the Hands-on.

Spanish Lesson Part 1
By the way, chingar is a word in Mexican Spanish that means a lot of things, both for good or bad contexts. It can be used so widely that there is even a "chingonary", or a dictionary on how to use it, that I had to buy one for me in a local bookstore. In this case, it means "Java EE 7 has so many new technologies inside", but of course using a slang, almost a swearing word :P

Also, all the registration fee for this event was donated to a local orphans institute. Later, perhaps the best moment of it all: when we were walking on the street after the event looking for a place to dinner, we met with the supporters of this institute.

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Santiago, Chile - August 1st

Santiago is an incredible city. It holds about 30% of the entire population of Chile, and I would guess perhaps more than 50% of the entire economy there. It is one of the most modern city, with great infrastructure and easy access to several touristic places. It was where I could enjoy a tourist-like day, so expect to see regular pictures. :P

Spanish Lesson Part 2The term bacán in Chilean Spanish means "cool". I had to change my slide here.

The conference here happened at a very nice university, close to a subway station, and here I gave my Java EE 7 talk the hands-on again, and then the GlassFish in Production Environments. I met with great people here both from Oracle User Groups as well some people from the local Java community. It was also where I first met and talked to Tim Hall, really great guy, Oracle ACED, an expert on Oracle Database. If you have any questions about OraDB, follow him on Twitter and check his website, oracle-base.com.

Lima, Peru - August 3rd

One day after Santiago, I was flying to Lima for the third country of my list. Lima has really nice areas, like Miraflores so if you plan to visit Peru one day, make sure you stay there to enjoy the best view of the Pacific Ocean. For night life, visit Barranco, full of bars, restaurants, and nightclubs.

Here I gave my traditional Java EE 7 session, catch up with local Oracle people, and had perhaps one of the crowdest room in the whole tour. The question I made to the attendees in the picture below was: "Did you like the new stuff in Java EE 7? Raise your hand if yes!!!"